When Jiangxia arrived, Conan and Ran Mouri were already in the car.
Kogoro Mouri wasn't coming—no surprise there. Yoko Kinoshita had a concert today.
The Sherlock Holmes Tour had been held a bunch of times by now. It wasn't huge, but among the diehards, it counted as a semi-legit event.
Also, once Kogoro heard that Jiangxia was attending, both Yoko and Jiangxia needed his support(Jiangxia for yoko merch). Naturally, he chose Yoko. Just like Conan chose Sherlock Holmes.
Besides Jiangxia and the usual suspects, four other people were in the car too.
Of course, the Sherlock Holmes Tour had more participants. There was another car heading out to Kansai to pick up even more people.
Their vehicle wound into the mountains and stopped beside a cliff.
There was a three-story hotel here, which was doubling as the event venue. The hotel's owner was also the host of the tour.
Jiangxia hopped out with his luggage slung over his back. He glanced at the parking area and saw another car had already arrived. That meant most of the guests were probably in the hotel lobby by now.
He headed inside, half-expecting something strange—and sure enough, there it was: a stranger radiating murderous intent.
Jiangxia's eyes lingered on the guy for a moment. Then he looked to the corner.
In that corner stood a dark-skinned high school detective wearing a baseball cap—Heiji Hattori had arrived.
Jiangxia felt instantly at ease.
If Conan and Heiji were both here, then this Sherlock Holmes tour was not going to be peaceful.
Plus, with this many people attending, it was way past the size of your average "pick-one-of-three" murder scenario. Heiji's serial murder magnet aura was really living up to the hype.
…
The hotel owner was a slightly chubby middle-aged man named Hiroyuki Kanaya, dressed in a full Sherlock Holmes cosplay outfit.
Hiroyuki Kanaya welcomed everyone and started announcing the schedule for the competition.
Jiangxia was listening, but then felt a little tug at his hair. He looked down—Xiaobai was pointing toward the door, looking like he was tattling on someone.
Jiangxia followed his gaze and saw Heiji at the back of the crowd, tugging his cap down and creeping toward the exit like he was planning an escape.
A while back, Heiji had come to Tokyo all fired up to challenge the Tokyo high school detectives.
He'd expected a thrilling, evenly matched showdown. Instead, he got absolutely crushed.
That gap between expectation and reality hit hard. When Heiji got back to Osaka, life suddenly felt unbearably dull—even solving cases didn't help.
In an attempt to pull himself out of the slump, he figured what he needed was a proper rival. An evenly matched opponent. Someone to push him to new heights.
Of course, that opponent absolutely could not be Jiangxia.
So, Heiji filtered through the remaining candidates and decided that Kudo Shinichi was the most suitable.
Now, there were rumors floating around that Kudo was dead. But Heiji had personally visited the Mouri house, and learned from Ran that Kudo still called her sometimes.
Ran said Kudo never asked about how she was doing on the phone—like, classic scumbag behavior. But Heiji read between the lines. He figured Kudo wasn't dead at all. In fact, he was probably hiding nearby, keeping an eye on Ran from the shadows.
Which meant… finding him shouldn't be too hard.
Also, Heiji had another idea.
—Jiangxia once invited him to transfer from Osaka to Tokyo, clearly searching for a worthy opponent.
But Jiangxia hadn't gone looking for Kudo, even though Kudo was right there in Tokyo. Instead, he'd looked all the way to Osaka to find him, Heiji.
That meant Kudo's "disappearance" must've been really convincing—Jiangxia probably didn't know where he was.
So… if Heiji could find the hidden Kudo before Jiangxia did, that would be a solid win, right?
This thought gave Heiji a second wind. He felt fired up again.
As for how to find Kudo? Well, it's well known that Kudo Shinichi is a Sherlock Holmes nerd. And in Heiji's view, "using your brain" was addictive—if Kudo was being forced to keep a low profile by Jiangxia, he'd probably blow off steam by secretly entering events like this and testing his brain against normal people.
That's why Heiji signed up for the Sherlock Holmes tour.
But what he didn't expect… was that when he got here, the first person he saw wasn't Kudo Shinichi—it was Jiangxia.
That's when Heiji realized things were bad.
He'd done his homework on Jiangxia's case-solving record. And in all that digging, not once had he come across anything saying Jiangxia was a fan of Sherlock Holmes.
And yet… here Jiangxia was. At this event.
A horrible suspicion crept in.
Maybe Jiangxia was here to catch Kudo Shinichi.
After all, he didn't come alone—he'd dragged along Kudo's girlfriend too.
If this were just some study vacation, why bring someone who clearly didn't care about Sherlock Holmes?
Which meant… Jiangxia was using Ran as bait to draw Kudo out.
And now, Heiji started projecting—he had a childhood friend too, Kazuha. What if Jiangxia used her as bait to catch him?
A cold chill ran down his spine.
…How insidious.
Who could resist stepping out when their crush was being dangled like that?
Jiangxia wasn't as innocent as he looked. He was basically a high-level demon in disguise—willing to do anything to find a worthy opponent.
But here's the problem: Kudo hadn't shown up.
And that left a grim reality: there were only two high school detectives here—Heiji and Jiangxia.
Which meant Jiangxia's attention would absolutely turn to him.
…That could not happen.
Realizing this, Heiji made a snap decision: time to dip.
He had zero interest in Sherlock Holmes. Kudo hadn't appeared. And he might be the next target.
No reason to stay.
He tried to casually slip toward the door.
But just as he reached it, something tugged on his arm, anchoring him in place.
Jiangxia's cheerful voice chimed behind him: "What a coincidence! You signed up for this too? The event hasn't even started yet—where are you off to?"
Heiji froze, one step away from freedom: "…"
He stared longingly at the open blue sky outside, sighed silently, then turned around and calmly said, "…I'm not leaving. I just thought the air at the entrance felt nicer."
*Goal #1: Top 200 fanfics published within the last 30 - 90 days by POWER STONES.
Progress: 23/60(approx) for 10 BONUS CHAPTERS
Goal #2: One BONUS CHAPTER per review for the first 10 REVIEWS.
Progress:1/10*